Author: Luke Parsnow

When a newspaper closes, it’s just as sad as when the big factory in town closes, or when that family restaurant on the corner is forced to shut its doors after being in business for multiple generations. paypsNewspapers aren’t just places for people to work anymore than a factory job is just a job. They’re both local services. And when they’re gone, they leave a mighty hole. Where a factory gives a town an identity, a newspaper gives it information. Where a family restaurant gives a town a soul, a newspaper gives it a conscience. This is true for any town, large or small, and for any type…

It’s been just seven months since New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sailed to a third term as chief executive of the Empire State. And he’s all but ready to run again in 2022. Cuomo said in a radio interview recently that he fully intends to make a bid for an unprecedented fourth term as governor. That feat was only made once in the state’s entire history by Nelson Rockefeller, and that was one feat his father Mario failed to accomplish. “I believe I’m doing good things,” Cuomo said. “And I believe I know how to do this and it gives me a personal sense of satisfaction to believe that at the end…

In the news headlines of June 6, 2019, was an American president’s state visit to London, an agreement between the United States and Japan to enhance cooperation in their defense against new threats like cyberspace, and a soaring rise in exports from Germany. Things were a lot different on that day 75 years earlier. On June 6, 1944, Americans awoke to the news that their own troops and those of their Allies had stormed the beaches of Normandy in what was the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s regime. Not too far away from where the same Allied troops had been forced to evacuate just four…

In the last few weeks, we’ve heard President Donald Trump say repeatedly that he is “the most transparent president in history.” The irony, of course, is that he has said this while explaining why he won’t comply with what appear to be lawful congressional subpoenas for the very item that makes his bold claim mute: his tax returns. While every president since Richard Nixon has annually publicly released their tax information, Trump has gone to extreme lengths to keep them locked up. Despite promising again and again on the campaign trail that he would release them after he was audited…

In February 2017, soon after states like neighboring Massachusetts and Vermont had legalized recreational marijuana, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reiterated his opposition to such a move, calling it a “gateway drug.” “As of this date, I am unconvinced on recreational marijuana,” he said. “If you choose to use marijuana recreationally, you know the law.” Less than two years later, he completely changed his mind and said, “Let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all.” And in the last five months, it has been his most vocal objective in the newly Democratic-controlled state Legislature. The great…

No one would ever want to show up to work one day, then find out that their place of employment had suddenly closed its doors and that their job had immediately been eliminated. But that’s what happened last month to more than 300 laid-off workers at the restaurant chain Friendly’s across upstate New York. Fifteen Friendly’s locations across the state suddenly closed at the beginning of April, including restaurants in Central New York (Great Northern, Clay; 3275 Erie Blvd. E., DeWitt; 3701 James St., Syracuse) and Oswego (192 W. Bridge St.), many of them with no warning. The Route 31 Friendly’s in Liverpool remains open, as well as outlets in Cortland, New Hartford and Ithaca. Sometimes we tend…

It was four years ago this month when New York state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was arrested along with his son on bribery and extortion charges. The surrender of the upper chamber’s top leader was only made more dramatic due to the fact that his counterpart, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, had himself been arrested on bribery charges just five months earlier. In a state already known for its rampant government corruption, the charges against the state Legislature’s two leaders — one Democrat and one Republican — so close together should have sent shockwaves through Albany. These instances should…

The New York state Department of Transportation has released its long-awaited draft environmental impact statement that named the community grid as its preferred option to replace a stretch of Interstate 81 through downtown Syracuse. It gives us hope that we’ve finally been able to turn the page on a story of debate and politics that Central New Yorkers first started hearing about back in 2007 and 2008. The community grid would transform the 1.4-mile elevated viaduct of I-81 in downtown Syracuse into a network of city streets and divert traffic to Interstate 481, which would be widened to accommodate more…

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went from an absolute nobody to one of Time magazine’s most influential people of the year after defeating longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District 10 months ago. Now the very act that catapulted the controversial congresswoman into the national spotlight is what she is now being reprimanded for. In the last few weeks, she has taken fire from all members of the political spectrum for her encouragement to other insurgents to primary against incumbent members of Congress in the next election and those after. This came to a…

For quite some time now, many people in power have launched seemingly never-ending attacks on the media, from denouncing anonymous sources, to questioning their integrity, to blanketing them as “fake news.” But those attacks have largely been verbal or written in opinion columns or on social media platforms. They have the absolute right to criticize the media in those conditions. But in Georgia, some politicians are taking it to a dangerous new level. At the close of their legislative session a few weeks ago, a group of Republican lawmakers in the Georgia state Assembly introduced the facetiously named “Ethics in…

Maybe our failure to curb mass shootings in the U.S. is because we rely on that “it can’t happen here” sentiment, even though it keeps proving us wrong. 

If representatives make a health care plan with bipartisan support, maybe the very issue that established our modern political division can be what ends it.

The demise of retail giant Sears after it filed for bankruptcy in October 2018 is an example of what happens when you commit to generous benefits.

This year, a whole bunch of policies were lined up for the New York State Budget process, but that’s not the way it should work.

President Donald Trump has taken credit for raising funds for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — something he originally wanted to slash.